Friends, I hav an unusual problem with my 1997 CVPI with 182.5k.After I moved the car from my garage after a few moths of being parked, to check anti-freeze, I found the overflow tank completely dry. I added coolant to the full mark and ran the engine until warmed.Last week, I drove the car to Virginia (about 300 miles. Again, the tank was bone dry and required more coolant to fill. These observatons:1. Temp gauge is completely in normal range.2. Car has never overheated during my ownership (80k).3. No coolant odour in passenger compartment.4. No obvious leaks in pass compartment or engine bay. Engine still has plastic intake manifold but intake valley is completely dry.5. Heater output is very cool and temp control setting makes no difference.I have always felt fairly capable of fixing anything on my car, but I'm stumped on this one. Any suggestions of where to begin?

I wouldn't jump right to head gasket just yet. the heater is cool because the coolant is low, now the question is where is the coolant going.

There are many places coolant can leak, radiator, hoses, heater core, intake manifold, and of course, the head gaskets. I would highly suspect that manifold if it is still the all plastic one and it has never been changed before. The two most common places for them to leak is around the thermostat, and around the heater hose fitting.

at that age and mileage, I'd also suspect that the radiator hoses are probably in need of replacing, along with the hoses that run to the heater core. I could also be the heater core its self, but you say you don't smell coolant in the cabin.

Pull your plug wires and make sure the boots and plug-wells are dry, when the manifolds crack, they like to fill the spark-plug wells with coolant, especially numbers 4 and 5.

If it were a head gasket, you would likely have coolant/oil mixing, and/or white, sweet smelling exhaust smoke.

As stupid as it sounds, have you checked the radiator cap? I had a very similar problem, where 3/4 of the reservoir would be empty after every drive. If I didn't add coolant, it would be bone dry the next day. Did a pressure test, and there were no leaks so I replaced the cap with an RS-527, and that solved the issue. But about four days later, I had a leaky intake manifold gasket, in one of the coolant passages, which would leak coolant into the intake valley.

Would be good insurance to replace the manifold, heater core hoses, radiator hoses and that hose that runs from the back of the water pump. Silicone hoses are a good investment I would say.

Coolant loss apparently was leaking intake manifold gaskets. We decided to replace the all-plastic mnifold with the new type (aluminum cross-over) since the manifold had to come off anyway.Heater problem appears to be blend door actuator.

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